


What You Don't Know

by rangersandlegends



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 15:49:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14674334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangersandlegends/pseuds/rangersandlegends
Summary: Only one half of a soulmate pair get a mark. For Oliver Queen, it means he knows who to avoid. For Felicity Smoak, it means she might never meet her mate.





	What You Don't Know

**Author's Note:**

> I thought the fandom needed more soulmate fics, so I wrote one.

The trouble with soulmates markings is not everyone gets one. Everyone gets a soulmate, of course, but only one half of the pair wakes up on their eighteenth birthday with a name on their skin. It’s good etiquette or that mate to track down their other half and make the revelation known. But Oliver Queen has never been one for good etiquette.

 

He wakes up on the morning of his eighteenth birthday with a girl in his bed. He has no fantasies about this girl being his soulmate. He’s not even interested in seeing her again. No, his only intent is to get hre out of here before Laurel comes over for breakfast. He and Laurel are “serious” (her words, not his), and he at least knows that he doesn’t want her to see him in bed with...Sandy? Sadie? Whatever the case, he says what he needs to say to her and gets her out of the mansion without incident.

 

Oliver forgets to check the inside of his right wrist for his marking until his eight year old sister barges in, trying to get a look for herself. She’s still of the age when soulmates seem romantic, instead of fate’s prison. If oliver wants more than one girl, who is destiny to tell him otherwise? Once he chases her off, he secludes himself in his bathroom, takes a steadying breath, and looks at his wrist.

 

Felicity Smoak.

 

Not Laurel Lance, not one of the faceless girls he’s taken to bed, not even someone he’s met. The universe has decided a girl he’s never met is going to be his aways. Nope. If he never met her, it would make no difference.

 

The fact that he doesn’t tell Laurel what his wrist says is everything she needs to know. If she’s disappointed she doesn’t show it. Her eighteenth birthday has already passed, meaning someone else had to be carrying her name. She says this doesn’t change anything between them, they can still be together. But if the universe isn’t going to trap Oliver Queen, neither is Laurel Lance.

 

Four years later, Oliver is still running, this time with Laurel’s sister. She doesn’t have a name on her wrist, so she doesn’t care one way or the other what Oliver’s says. But fate has other plans. Specifically, the water takes Sara away from Oliver and Oliver away from everyone. All he has is a water-logged photo of the woman he wronged, and the name on his wrist. He realizes he’s a man who is worthy of neither.

 

Lian Yu is unforgiving. It makes him someone else, someone who is uninterested in anything but returning home. Hong Kong makes him realize he’s not ready for that. He spends his nights running his fingers over his wrist, over her name. He knows nothing about her by his own design. She’s out there, not knowing she’s his soulmate, not knowing they would never meet. To her, Oliver Queen is dead and her soulmate is alive. What is she doing right now? If he’s sleeping here, she’s probably at work back home. Does she wonder about him like he does her?

 

Russia gives him enough control that he can fathom going home. So he does. Things are different. Thea is practically an adult. His mother is remarried. Laurel has Tommy, and that’s good. She needs someone, and it was never meant to be him.

 

He avoids finding Felicity Smoak. He can, always could, but her life doesn’t need to be interrupted by a broken vigilante. The mission, he decides, is his soulmate. It will be until it kills him.

 

It all goes to plan until he comes across that cursed laptop. Hacking it is beyond what Anatoly taught him. But he’s a man of many resources, so he heads to the IT department. They write down the name of who he needs to talk to, and he takes the slip of paper without a second glance. By the time he reads it, he’s standing in front of her and he can’t turn around.

 

She’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. And she’s chewing on a pen, completely unaware her soul mate is standing in front of her. Promising himself this is a one-time deal, he gets her to retrieve the data he needs. Then he leaves her, and everything she represents, behind him.

 

But he’s drawn to her. He finds excuses to go get her help. He could break encryptions or do research himself, but he convinces himself she can do it faster, better. Both of them recognize the lame excuses he’s using, but he can’t help it. He needs to hear her babble, see her smile, watch her tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear.

 

It was only a matter of time before he brought her in. She’s becoming his partner in every sense of the word. Having her in his ear on missions helps him focus. Knowing he gets to see her makes him that much more motivated to come home at night’s end. That’s what she is: home.

 

Of course, letting her in completely means compounding the danger she’s in. So he distances himself with other women. It isn’t the ideal solution, but it’s better than watching her die. He can handle the disappointment in her eyes as long as her light keeps shining. He tries to tell her, but she’s too stubborn to understand. She thinks more of him than he deserves.

 

Finally, it becomes too much to be with her but not  _ with _ her. So he asks her to dinner. The brightness in her eyes when he asks is all the answer he needs (but her saying yes doesn’t hurt). That night, she looks the most radiant he has ever seen her. And even though they don’t even make it to appetizers, it’s the best night of his life. He can look at her openly, letting her see everything he’s thinking. He lets her in, and, in her words, it feels really good having her inside of him.

 

But it’s a fantasy, one that has to be blown to pieces. He saves her this time, but their lives don’t guarantee success next time. So it’s back to their dance. He can only pull her so close before fear forces him to push her away again. She moves on to someone else, and he tells himself it’s what’s best.

 

Oliver Queen fights fate tooth and nail. He fights it on the island when it feels like he’s destined to die. He fights it back home, when it seems like fate wanted him to be defeated. He fights it when it pushes him toward Felicity Smoak. This time, though, fate is stronger.

 

He’s going to leave her forever. That is what being in the League means. He knows it, she knows it. She tells him she loves him. Of course she does. She’s his soulmate. Of course she would fall for him. He can’t have her living her life, looking for a soulmate that isn’t there to find. So he shows her his wrist. She says nothing, kissing him instead.

 

They say their goodbyes. Fate is tearing them apart. Oliver is okay with that, as long as his Felicity is safe. He can handle anything, armed with just that knowledge.

 

He is supposed to become a different man. They burn off his mark to make him forget her. It doesn’t work. She is part of him now, not just a name on his wrist. He makes his way back to her, and she doesn’t see the man the League had created; she sees her soulmate.

 

When it’s all over, she chooses him. It isn’t the easiest choice she has in front of her, but she does. He promises her a safer life, a better life, in return. A life of being everyday soulmates. Being who she is, though, means his mission has become her mission. So they return to it.

 

Ten years ago, if someone had asked him where his life would be now, he’d say avoiding his soulmate. But being co-crime fighters with his soulmate is better. Oliver Queen may be good at fighting fate, but he could never win. And now he knows he never wanted to.

 

\---------------------------------

 

Felicity Smoak had loved her soulmate since she was three years old. No, she hadn’t met him, and, no, she didn’t know his name. But was born to love him, her mother told her so. Her mother hadn’t married her soulmate, and look where that had left them. No, her soulmate wouldn’t leave her. She couldn’t wait until she turned eighteen.

 

When she woke up to a blank wrist on her eighteenth birthday, she was devastated. She would have to wait until either he turned eighteen, or he reached out. She could wait, though. She had always been ahead of the game: college at sixteen, graduation at twenty. Maybe she was just a bit ahead of her soulmate. 

 

She was chewing on a pen when Oliver Queen walked into her life. He was attractive; that was a simple fact. He wanted her to retrieve data from a shot-up laptop that obviously wasn’t his. She couldn’t deny him, though; his name was on the side of the building. She didn’t forget the encounter, but she didn’t actively think on it. It was a one-off episode in her life.

 

Most of her college friends had already found their soulmates. It was becoming harder to be optimistic that her soulmate just hadn’t turned eighteen yet. Not that she would mind an age gap, she just knew the statistics weren’t on her side. That left the possibility that her soulmate knew exactly who she was, and wanted nothing to do with her. But who didn’t want a soulmate?

 

Oliver was becoming more of a staple in her life. She knows better than to question the CEO’s stepson, so continues helping him with his side projects. When he shows up in her car in the hood, she realizes her life has been turned upside down.

 

Everyday, she gets closer to him. She likes being near him. Yes, he’s nice to look at, but it’s more than that now. It’s easier to smile around him, easier to feel safe. He’s not her soulmate (he has Laurel Lance), but maybe he can just be her best friend.

 

It doesn’t get easier, not being his soulmate. Things would be easier if he were. Then she could give in to these feelings. Ones she can ignore until she sees him with the woman of the week. They parade in and out. He clearly doesn’t care to find his soulmate. She doesn’t even know if he’s marked. If he were, he wouldn’t be sleeping around. He’d know he was meant for only one woman, know who it was.

 

Before she knows it, he’s telling her he loves her. He shouldn’t; they’re not meant for each other. She reminds him they’re unthinkable, and he accepts it. Then he’s asking her out to dinner and she’s saying yes. She shouldn’t be doing this. He’s not her soulmate. It couldn’t work. Oh, how she wanted it to. One dinner and she’s already thinking about spending her life with this man. He has that much of a hold on her. So when he tells her no, she shuts down. Her soulmate didn’t want her, and neither did Oliver.

 

Ray Palmer did, though. It wasn’t the same as having a soulmate, having someone who had lost their own. But she’s done waiting for someone who was as much a fantasy as cold fusion. Ray was kind, Ray was decent, Ray was devoted. He had a crusade, but he wanted her to be part of it and his life. He didn’t compartmentalize what she could be for him. Did she love him? No. Could she? Maybe. Did he love her? Yes.

 

But if she was moving on from her absentee soulmate, it couldn’t be with Ray. Not when Oliver was in her life. Not when Oliver still looked at her like she held the secrets of the universe So she was fair to Ray, and she told him what she knew to be true. Admitting that took her on a journey to the other side of the world, where she told the man she loved that she loved him.

 

Oliver showed her his wrist. Her mind was surprised, but her heart wasn’t. Her heart had known for some time now. So she showed him how she felt. It didn’t stop him from leaving, but at least now she knew. She found the man who was supposed to be in her life forever, and the first thing he did was leave.

 

She thought thinking he was dead would be the hardest thing she’d ever go through. She was wrong. Seeing him controlled by the League was. He looked through her, not at her. He pretended to kill her. He let her believe her soulmate was gone.

 

Somehow she was the first to forgive him when the time came. And she ran away with him simply because he asked. The destination was meaningless as long as she was with him. Her soulmate had finally chosen her, above his mission. When she realized the both of them were only playing pretend, she knew they had to go home. So that’s where she led them.

 

She had grown up thinking her soulmate was perfect, and her life would be simplified by meeting him. Neither of these things ended up being true. Lie as a vigilante was complicated, and the man at her side was far from perfect. But he wasn’t leaving, ever. She made him promise every day, and he never did. Not even when she left, when she pushed him away, did he leave. He stayed. And that was perfection enough.


End file.
